Outsourcing and process optimization: the two major trends in the newspaper industry will be consistently implemented in Wetzlar. Apart from PlanPag, ProPag and AdPag by ppi Media as well as interfaces to the editorial and ad booking system, the publishing house also decided in favor of a new editorial system (RedWeb). Specification of the new comprehensive solution began in January 2012. The implementation of and link to SAP modules is also planned in a later step.

Content-X: Multimedia Corporate Publishing

Content-X, ppi Media’s editorial solution for dailies and small magazines, has already been piloted and successfully installed at a large number of customer sites. The user-friendly GUI, integration of InDesign and semantic search function in images, texts and keywords are in high demand among its publishing customers. With immediate effect, large companies, associations and agencies will also benefit from Content-X. Texts can be published in different media channels with just one click. Communicators, graphic editors, agencies and experts can view and edit texts and publications from any computer. All the data is saved on a central server. PR work is structured and simplified with Content-X.

Ad reservation for print, online and mobile

Adx, ppi Media’s solution for reserving ads and banners for the print media and web applications, will benefit from the network for digital media products as well. “We are now able to present our solutions in a new, dynamic way. Our access to the market offered by the network is extremely valuable to us,” says Norbert Ohl, COO of ppi Media.

Targets for 2012: Print as a basis – digital media as growth market

ppi Media and the Evers-Frank Group have clearly defined their joint targets: “We will pursue our classic range of products for publishing and printing and will continue to offer, supervise and develop our proven solutions. In addition, ppi Media will gradually expand its digital products,” says Martin Ruhle, CTO at ppi Media. New web applications will round off ppi Media’s range of products. Services will be extended to include software as a service and application service models.

About ppi Media

ppi Media GmbH is the leading international workflow specialist for newspaper publishers and printers and the market leader in the field of automated newspaper production. Around the world, more than 100 publishers rely on the solutions provided by the software producer from Hamburg. ppi Media's product portfolio ranges from classic print solutions for planning, production and prepress to mobile applications and cross-media ad booking and editorial systems. Its head office is in Hamburg, and it has branches in Kiel, Germany, and Chicago, USA. The company employs 135 staff.

About the Evers-Frank Group

The Evers-Frank Group is a holistic media production service provider with offers for the fields of print, online and mobile. It can look back on 100 years of experience and success. The parent company, Evers-Druck, was founded in Meldorf in 1911, the parent company Frank-Druck in Preetz in 1957. Further production sites include Berlin, Alzey, Neumünster and Hamburg. Today, the company employs approx. 1,000 staff, generating sales totaling more than € 300 mil. Through its cooperation with leading software producers and development companies, the Evers-Frank Group has managed to combine the right mixture of entrepreneurial responsibility and innovative process skills. 

About the Bertsch Innovation Group

The Bertsch Innovation Group is a dynamic corporate group that presently includes 20 companies from the fields of IT, publishing, agencies, sports, music and
fashion. Since 1999, the Group's core business has been to turn ideas into corporate success. Its customers include, among others, Microsoft, Mercedes Benz, Deichmann, Hugo Boss, Wolters Kluwer and Vodafone. Today, a total of approx. 250 staff work at six locations in Germany, achieving an annual turnover of over € 20 mil.

Bertsch Innovation Group and ppi Media: synergies and growth potential

ppi Media and the Bertsch Innovation Group merge classic print solutions and digital innovations into new cross-media products and services that go even beyond the media industry. “We are very pleased that ppi Media will enhance our portfolio as a high-performance, trend-setting company in the publishing industry. We will pool our expertise in print and online so that, by cooperating closely, we can further expand ppi Media's market position,” said Dr. Ulrike Handel, member of the Board of Directors of the Bertsch Innovation Group. The Bertsch Innovation Group has many years of experience in developing technology, creating complex media databases and advising diverse clients from the publishing industry, as well as a global interdisciplinary network.

Evers-Frank Group and ppi Media: a network for digital services

From a conventional offset printing house to a service provider for digital offers: the Evers-Frank Group completed this transition in an extremely short period of time. Dr. Jens Silligmüller, Executive Director for Business Development at the Evers-Frank Group as well as EversFrankmedia, in which ppi Media will be organizationally located, said, “In 2011, we were able to win Comosoft, a leading provider of software solutions for companies in the trade, mail-order and tourism sectors, as a partner in EversFrankmedia. ppi Media expands our network for digital services by adding software solutions for the publishing industry.” In the publishing industry, ppi Media stands for highly-automated process solutions for the planning and production of newspapers, prepress software and cross-media ad booking and editorial systems.

About ppi Media

ppi Media GmbH is the leading international workflow specialist for newspaper publishers and printers and the market leader in the field of automated newspaper production. Around the world, more than 100 publishers rely on the solutions provided by the software producer from Hamburg. ppi Media's product portfolio ranges from classic print solutions for planning, production and prepress to mobile applications and cross-media ad booking and editorial systems. Its head office is in Hamburg, and it has branches in Kiel, Germany, and Chicago, USA. The company employs 135 staff.

About the Evers-Frank Group

The Evers-Frank Group is a holistic media production service provider with offers for the fields of print, online and mobile. It can look back on 100 years of experience and success. The parent company, Evers-Druck, was founded in Meldorf in 1911, the parent company Frank-Druck in Preetz in 1957. Further production sites include Berlin, Alzey, Neumünster and Hamburg. Today, the company employs approx. 1,000 staff, generating sales totaling more than € 300 mil. Through its cooperation with leading software producers and development companies, the Evers-Frank Group has managed to combine the right mixture of entrepreneurial responsibility and innovative process skills. 

About the Bertsch Innovation Group

The Bertsch Innovation Group is a dynamic corporate group that presently includes 20 companies from the fields of IT, publishing, agencies, sports, music and
fashion. Since 1999, the Group's core business has been to turn ideas into corporate success. Its customers include, among others, Microsoft, Mercedes Benz, Deichmann, Hugo Boss, Wolters Kluwer and Vodafone. Today, a total of approx. 250 staff work at six locations in Germany, achieving an annual turnover of over € 20 mil.

This changeover at the Vorarlberger Nachrichten used individual software components to achieve an editorial workflow for the daily newspaper's print, online and mobile offers. “For us, Content-X plays an essential role in our digital strategy and future objectives. This solution convinced everyone,” said Peter Zehrer, Technical Director for Prepress at the Vorarlberger Zeitungsverlag und Druckerei GmbH.

High Speed with Content-X

Content-X is a modern, streamlined and easy-to-use editorial tool that was developed for cross-media work. Basically, this solution consists of three components: the Content Management System DC-X by Digital Collections, InDesign by Adobe and ContentLink by ppi Media. In contrast to classic editorial systems, the striking features of Content-X are its speed and simplicity. This solution can be installed, implemented and learned in just a few days. Apart from the Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Content-X is also successfully implemented at the Cellesche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Rheinische Post and Wochenblatt-Verlag, located in Ravensburg, Germany.

Gold Medal in the Combined Event

However, Content-X is not only applied as an editorial solution for daily newspapers. Weeklies, third-party publications and magazines are also planned and produced using Content-X. “I'm sure that the future will prove just how versatile Content-X is. We are presently holding interesting discussions in the field of Corporate Publishing,” said Norbert Ohl, COO of ppi Media. With its semantic search function and intelligent image and text archiving system, this solution is also excellently suited for PR departments and agencies.

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MediaCorp has completed its publishing system integration. The new workflow for TODAY started with the implementation of SAP’s IS-M/AM system and an update of the Prestige editorial system. Both are now fully integrated. With PlanPag as its central planning system, MediaCorp creates the page plans for Singapore’s second largest daily newspaper and then forwards them to the editorial system using standardized interfaces.

At MediaCorp, IS-M/AM is integrated in finance and controlling modules from the SAP ERP family. ppi Media provides extensive know-how on SAP IS-M/AM from over 50 reference installations at news publishers worldwide. Atex Prestige is integrated based on XML standards. ppi Media’s experience covers more than 100 installations with various editorial systems at newspapers worldwide.

About MediaCorp

MediaCorp is a leading media company in Singapore with the most complete range of platforms, spanning television, radio, newspapers, magazines, movies, digital and out-of-home media.

It pioneered the development of Singapore’s broadcasting industry, with the broadcast of radio in 1936 and television in 1963. Today, MediaCorp has over 50 products and brands in four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil), reaching out to all adults in Singapore every week.

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Multichannel publishing with Content-X is impressive. Due to its versatility, this streamlined, InDesign-based editorial solution was a real crowd-puller. Content-X provides print editions as well as publishers’ websites and apps with content. The distribution of content is simple. The editor creates an article in a web editor or directly in InDesign and then assigns images and videos to it if required. The editor-in-chief then selects the output channels. The editorial workflow with Content-X reflects the newsroom architecture in many of today’s publishing houses. Another highlight at ppi Media’s stand was AdX. This integrated solution for reserving ads in print, online, mobile and broadcast provides a cross-media environment for ad sales staff. On a central graphic user interface, AdX shows all free and booked ad spaces in a publisher’s newspapers, magazines, websites and mobile apps. Intelligent filters facilitate the process of booking cross-media ad campaigns. AdX is browser-based and, with its GUI for different multimedia channels, is extremely easy to operate. In addition, users can enter all the order data that is relevant for the SAP IS-M/AM booking system in AdX.

Closely entwined like Vienna and Sacher: OM and APL

In the traditional field of newspaper planning and production, ppi Media’s prepress solution OM for APL (Automatic Plate Loading) was in great demand. This output management system knows and meets the requirements of the highly automated APL workflow and ensures the correct imaging sequence of printing plates. Besides OM, PlanPag, the central planning system for newspaper production, and the new AdMan ad delivery workflow were also successful, as underlined by the contracts signed by MediaNorge AS (Norway) and Schwäbischer Zeitungsverlag (Germany).

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The ad delivery extension, a web portal for uploading ads automatically, monitors different data delivery channels, e.g. e-mail, FTP, ISDN or web, round the clock. The transferred data (sender, subject, e-mail text, file name and attachments) is assigned to the correct jobs on delivery. Following the administration of the motifs and jobs in AdMan, pdfPerfect then performs a preflight check on the delivered PDF and EPS files, ensuring a transparent and secure ad production workflow at Schwäbischer Verlag. “AdMan has been in daily operation since 2000 and runs very reliably. So purchasing the new ad delivery workflow extension was a logical step for us. We look forward to continued cooperation with ppi Media,” said Klaus Zellmer, CEO of MSG Media Service Leutkirch.

About AdMan

ppi Media’s ad production system AdMan combines all the classic tasks in the ad department into one logical unit. The production of classified, liner and display ads and processing of digitally delivered ads, banners and flash animations as well as full and partial assignments is organized via electronic job folders. AdMan features an open architecture that allows the seamless integration of standard editors and DTP systems for print and online. Comprehensive control and monitoring functions enhance the workflow in the ad production department.